I would just like to introduce myself to all our regular LDB readers.
my name is Luis Sosa i've so far written two reviews for LiveDigitally. those reviews do a far better job of sharing my personality and sense of humour than i could sum up in this quick post.
i am looking forward to sharing more of my day to day opinions on technology and its impact on our lives via this blog, along with my fellow LDB writers.
till we meet again.

posted by: You know who i am

MTV Hitting Overdrive

It all started with MTV, the one and only Music television. The good stuff kids go for. Now there are few different versions of the youth’s outlet for “cool”. MTV2, MTV.com, and of course all of the different countries like MTV Japan, MTV UK, etc. Well it appears that MTV will not stop until it has every 16 year old on the planet humming the new Brittney song and laughing at Bam Margera kicking his dad’s a$$.

MTV has seen the broadband craze and decided to double their presence on the web by launching MTV Overdrive. MTV Overdrive will have it’s own studio built in New York’s Times Square, where exclusive MTV Overdrive content will be produced. We’ll expect a launch on April 25th 2005.

I can’t get enough of that MTV!

(Absence of pics courtesy of blogger)

posted by: feeling entropy

Nokia 8800

Well Blogger is working a bit better today. But this post might have to go pictureless again. I've been trying for over 20 minutes. But links here will take you where you want to go to see what this looks like.

Yesterday the Nokia 8800 came out. It's a slide phone (as seen with the Men In Black), and Josh Rubin of Cool Hunting is quick to point out its elegance and ring tones which are composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto. More important, the 8800 comes with all the standard features in a stainless steel body. I drop my phone all the time, so a steel frame doesn't seem like an obnoxious luxury, but a really good idea. Wish you could see it. Oh wait, you can.

posted by: DigiDave

On Demand Everything

On demand everything is really coming around. Its almost a wonder why it didn’t happen sooner, but I guess that’s what pay per view was when you called the phone to order Wrestlemania XXXXVI a decade ago. Now it just seems cooler to order stuff on the computer. Food, electronics, services. We are becoming so bound to technology, sometimes its scary. A guy once flipped out at work when he didn’t have his Ipaq working. What did he do before he had this thing? ANYWAYS..back to the subject...

UK TV channel Five has become the first broadcaster in their country to provide LEGAL television downloads for a fee direct to your computer. Its protected by Microsoft’s DRM technology to prevent piracy. Netimperative states the UK broadcaster has had demand for the ability to purchase content for a few years now, and are happy to be able to be the first to do so. They currently have a very limited number of downloads avaliable, but this whole on demand revolution should explode in the next couple of years.

posted by: Unjustjust

Smart Cabs

Two hundred cabs in San Francisco are equipped with a back seat driver. Computer screens will be fitted into the back of the cab for anybody to use for free. Visitors will be able to look up restaurants, site seeing destinations right when they leave the airport.

The back-seat devices are manufactured by The Interactive Taxi Co., with software developed by PeerDirect. The devices connect to a wireless network through Verizon's cellular service, and can maintain the perception of a steady-state connection even in "dead zones."
(photo to come when Blogger stops sucking)

posted by: DigiDave

ASIMO Means Foot In Japanese

Honda made a robot a while ago, which mimicked a human’s uncanny ability to walk and keep balance on only two feet. This robot was named ASIMO.

ASIMO has visited many classrooms and met many students, but this is the first time that ASIMO is part of the curriculum. That’s right, this isn’t some essay winning treat for students. An ASIMO appearance is now as predictable as next week’s spelling test (if you were a Japanese kid living in one of the two cities that hold the ASIMO robot in the local science museum. When I was in middle school we were able to take home the pet hamster for a weekend if we did all our homework, didn’t talk in class, and won a raffle for the week. Times are sure changing.

posted by: feeling entropy

Sony Patents The Matrix

Before I elaborate on this post, Wired columnist Adam Penenberg has a great comment on Blogger, the blogging tool we use here at LiveDigitally, explaining some of the finer nuances that we deal with. In other words, Blogger sucks.

But onwards. Sony apparently has patented an idea similar to the Matrix (minus the scary neck implants). While there is no technology, Sony now owns the rights to the idea of entertainment that actually stimulates the brain. So, you could watch a movie where the main character is eating chicken and you could then taste the chicken. Although, how would we know what chicken tasted like. Maybe we think we know but really the computer got it wrong. New Scientist should have more details in their next issue coming out this Saturday.

posted by: DigiDave

Step Aside Academy Awards

Who did the best job acting in a multi-million dollar movie is out. Who brings you those movies the best is in. That’s right, we’re shifting focus down the line a bit here. The On-Demandies: ‘Industry Awards To Recognize The Highest Standards Of Achievement In On-Demand Entertainment And Technology’.

For example, CNN on Verizon phones took home the gold in category VIII. Best Mobile Video Service, runner up was MobiTV. We’ve taken for granted the mediums in which we are able to experience the other Academy’s [read: the entertainment industry] work. The best thing I see about the On-Demandies is the absence of acceptance speeches.

posted by: feeling entropy

Free Energy

Living digitally uses a lot of electricity. Coal works, but it also has this small problem, pollution. There are all kinds of cooky crazy ideas to solve our energy needs, so I tried to find the most far out/possible idea there was. Here's my Wired story on it. It's a flying electrical generator. Basically a windmill in the sky. The Australian who invented it thinks it could solve all our energy needs. I Just hope planes don't crash into it. (Note: The picture below is an artistic rendition of what it will look like AFTER it's built).

posted by: DigiDave

Get Perpendicular!

I love a good jingle every once and a while. Actually there was a solid week in college when I had the theme song to Growing Pains stuck humming in my mind.

After a visit to Hitachi’s site I now have “Get Perpendicular” suck in my head. No, Hitachi isn’t producing a sitcom for TV with a catch theme song. Actuator Man and that lonely little bit are explaining how Hitachi is countering the superparamagnetic effect by, ‘getting perpendicular’. Couple some flash animation, a catch disco themed song, and the basics on how Hitachi is upping the density of their hard drives (currently 230 gigabytes per square inch), and you got a rootin’ tootin’ good time.

posted by: feeling entropy

Robo Cop In Japan

I really don't know what to say for this. A police station in Japan appointed a robot to be their chief this April 6th. The T63 Artemis is part of a ploy to promote safe driving in the town of Fukuoka. Apparently the robot can throw colored balls at those who look suspicious. I have a feeling this police chief won't make tenure.

posted by: DigiDave

Best Buy For A Mac Mini

The Mac Mini is a perfect item for someone who wants to make the switch over to Apple but is too afraid to jump in at a top of the line price. Let's face it, that's why Jobs made the thing, to try and convert Microsoft softies who want to try something new. Well the reach just got expanded, because the Mac Mini is now available at Best Buy.

posted by: DigiDave

Double Double Your Refreshment

There’s lots of talk on the mobile phone market to integrate handsets with TV capabilities. Adding two things that you use the most into one seems to be where the trends are taking us these days.

Search engines are something that we all use, but why only use one when you have the ability to use two? That’s right, combine Yahoo! and Google for an original idea named with an equally original name! Yagoohoogle, don’t try to pronounce it out loud, you’ll for sure sound like a baby attempting to push out his first words.

I think I just may bookmark this page for novelty’s sake, the split screen action is not so bad, and there’s something appealing about two for the price of one.

posted by: feeling entropy

Pony Apology

I would like to apologize for a prior silly post where I suggested that Google attempts to keep my business by offering me a free pony. It was a ridiculous suggestion. Particularly because it is an offer that only appeals to riders and horse crazy teenage girls. What I should have said, is that Google should endeavor to keep users by offering personal jet packs. If they really want to do a good job, the need to offer Rocketeer quality equipment. In the meantime however, a SoloTrek would be acceptable.

The SoloTrek is a 325 pound machine that enables a user to hover several feet above the ground. Eventually, the goal is to create a machine that allows for diving and swooping. A fully fueled SoloTrek runs for about two hours. I wonder if you can strap one of these babies to a pony-- because a free flying pony would be about the coolest thing I can think of at least for right now.

posted by: TechDiva

Apple Submits To Microsoft?

Apple was down for the count until their golden twins were born. Not identical twins, think more fraternal twins, fraternal Siamese twins! Ok I’ve killed that analogy, but you know what I’m talking about: iPod and iTunes.

Apple knew this day would come because “Everyone knows they [Microsoft] get it right by the time version 3.0 rolls around”. That’s right folks, Microsoft has been adopted by Apple to sync with the iPod and access the iTunes music store. This means that Apple will sell files in the Janus format as opposed to the AAC. Apple enjoyed the lime light while it could, but big brother Microsoft catches on and since there’s no beating them, mine as well join them.

posted by: feeling entropy

America's Funniest Home Videos??

In between commercial brakes for The Simpsons I caught the tail end of a commercial for Al Gore TV. In disbelief I shrugged off the information I had just heard and continued devouring my microwave burrito. This morning I decided to research this Vice President Television show a bit more. Al Gore is attempting to pull kids off the computer and back to cable television by creating his own cable TV channel.

What will the channel be about? My first guess: politics. Al Gore served two terms, was born to a politician, and knows politics. Once again I was wrong. Al envisions a channel that attracts the youth (ages 18-34) and encourages them to submit their own videos. The San Francisco based channel hopes to have 60% of it’s content as viewer created.

I lack cable so I don’t suppose I’ll visit the Al Gore channel. There’s something unconventional about a 57 year old ex-vice president creating a cable channel dedicated to airing home videos.

posted by: feeling entropy

LCD While You Sunbath

I was about to head off to the game when I came across this all weather LCD. This screen reeks of luxury so much that I want to bathe in it. In fact, I want to bathe in a Jacuzzi while watching an all weather LCD screen in Palm Springs.

posted by: DigiDave

On Demand Pizza

OpenTV, a United Kindom based company / service in 2000 enabled Sky TV to order Domino's Pizza through your television. Korean's have gotten into the game as well. SkyLife is a new service starting April 11th that does virtually the same thing, ordering Pizza without leaving your chair. Viewers can search the menu and place their order using their remote control.

"Orders are then sent to the outlet nearest the viewer's home, which makes the delivery, who will only have to get up to open the door. Registered users with a two-way receiver can use the service for free. SkyLife broadcasting director Lee Hueng-joo said the service rang in the era of "T-commerce." "We plan to soon include other products like chicken and Chinese food," he added. Viewers ordering via TV will get a 10 percent discount on Domino's pizzas. "

Man..is this nuts? can we be any lazier than we already are? Will this suceed? I know the online grocery shopping hasn't taken off, but this is just about the same as picking up the phone and ordering, I don't really see the need, but hey, if you are first in the market, the skies the limit.

posted by: Unjustjust

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Last night my roommate got two free tickets to the opening game at SBC park. So my posting might be light today, or possibly misspelled due to alcohol consumption. But before I go to watch the game, let's take a moment to appreciate the technological breakthroughs at SBC park, possibly the most technically savvy ballpark in the U.S. In fact, the park has wireless Internet, so I really have no excuse to not post.

Technology has changed America's favorite pastime in a general sense too, and I'm not just talking about steroids. Everything from how scouting is done to bullet proof batting gloves, technology has changed the game for the digital era.

posted by: DigiDave

CNN’s top 25

Before reading this article, I decided to guess what a few of the top technological breakthroughs were going to be. CNN listed the top breakthroughs of this past quarter century. A flag was raised right away for me, is CNN scoping 1975-2000 as the last quarter century? or are we considering the most recent 25 years (1980-2005)?

With these questions in mind I trudged on. My motivation, curiosity of what CNN’s panel of experts thought would be the 25 technologies that changed the world we live in. Nevertheless I was extremely disappointed with the results that they came up with. Alternative fuel cells haven’t changed our world much at all, everyone I know still drives a gasoline engine car, yet that was no.3. Computers placed in at no. 5 and yes, everyone I know has at minimum 1 computer, that’s world changing. When I saw the number 2 as defense technology I then realized that there was no number 1. Turns out you must tune in to CNN in order to catch a 1 hr countdown episode which will reveal the number one.

posted by: feeling entropy

Skype

Now I heard of this service before, and my brother constantly bothered me to try it out. He said he used it with a client in Brazil and himself in Fremont CA. Told me it was glorious, and I believed him when he said it.

He was in San Diego last week with his kiddies and 'called' me while we were online. With an interface that looks like a chat module, it is fairly intuitive to use, and the quality was quite clear. I assume both sides need to have a decent speed connection, but other than that, it was just like talking over the phone. He was using a Mac laptop while I a PC desktop. The problem was when I could hear the echo of my own voice on his side because he was using the built in speakers on the laptop without headphones and I could hear the echo of my voice a second after I said something. Conversing when you can hear yourself, delayed may I add, is quite a difficult task you've probably experienced with shoddy cell phone reception at some point.

A good service, I'd like to try it out internationally if any readers would like to 'chat' with yours truly...

posted by: Unjustjust

Start Wars

There’s about 6 weeks for the countdown to George Lucas’s film, Star Wars Episode III’s, debut. Since 6 weeks is just around the corner, people have decided to wait in line! That’s right, a line has formed and people are in wait. There’s a pay phone number that is listed on the site for people like me to call and chat to waiting Star Wars fans. After about 6 failed attempts at ringing the public phone, I gave up. As of right now there’s 271 people signed up in line, their names all posted here, the source for your up to date information on waiting in line.

The Starlight-Starbright Children’s Foundation is benefiting off of the Star Wars craze. With a few thousand generated already, they’re hoping to cap $20K! I’m not voicing an opinion on this one here today, you already know what I think. I’ve waited 30 mins for a movie on the premiere night and that was just ridiculous (Austin powers II). 6 weeks? For the unit conversion impaired that’s 2016 times longer than my 30 min wait.

posted by: feeling entropy

Talking Heads

David Byrne, the former lead singer of the Talking Heads, has been a technocrat for a long time. He has been a leader in the Creative Commons, has his own line of PowerPoint Art, and recently won an award for his blog. Now, he has moved on to create his own radio broadcast. His favorite songs are played and looped over, until he makes a new mix. As a new art musician Byrne listens to everything from Paul Simon to Outkast.

On a personal note, I saw Byrne at the Fillmore a few weeks ago. His hair might all be grey, but he can still rock.

posted by: DigiDave

Where Does The Time Go

The editor of TechnologyReview has decided to brave possible humiliation by re-publishing an article he wrote in April 1995. The verging Internet story deals with a new company (Yahoo!) and speculates as to their success. What's great about old stories like this, the Internet was still new and required delicate writing. "Link" has to be put in quotes and explained -- a word or phrase that will be highlighted. Things like that bring you back to a day when the Internet was not a mainstay, but an emerging trend.

posted by: DigiDave

The Google Double

Google will be doubling email storage capacity in an attempt to win the competition against Yahoo for users. The article I read cites the fun fact that a gigabyte is roughly equivalent to the content in 32 feet of shelves filled with books. So 2 gigabytes must be 64 feet of shelves then.

Does anyone actually have 64 shelves worth of email? And if so my next question is, does this person have a life? Honestly what kind of schedule would a person need to have to need that much EMAIL storage space? Would the schedule go wake up, email, email, email, archive email, break for take out chinese, email email nap email nap, email sleep? If so then I can certainly see how valuable the added storage space will be to these people.

This service is also useful for those of us who enjoy trading electronic copies of texts but always insist upon trading these in sections roughly equivalent to 32 feet of shelfspace. It must be exciting for such traders to realise they can now trade twice as much shelfspace worth of texts than they used to!

Maybe I'm just cranky or spoiled over here, but I want Google to give me a new toy. Thank you for the extra storage space, but how about a pony? If I were offered a free pony, I would drop my Yahoo account and stick with Google. Especially if they also let me keep the extra storage space, because then there would be plenty of room to store the pony in there AND receive email. I am assuming that I could take the 64 feet of shelf space contained in the two gigabytes and perhaps arrange them into a rudimentary stall. Maybe I took them too literally with the shelf space metaphor, or perhaps it's very late at night and I'm being silly.

posted by: TechDiva

The Executive Pong Set

Pop Quiz: First video game ever

A: Pong.

Almost 30 years later would you expect to pay anything to own this game? What if somebody asked for $750 for your very own Pong game. You'd probably start swinging in a rage of furious anger.

Well Above you see the Executive Pong. It's a video game for suits, yuppies and other hob-nobs. The LED projector fits in the palm of your hand. Add some bluetooth controllers and you have yourself a cocktail party favorite.

I hate to be the jerk in the room, but it's still just Pong. Nowadays Pong can capture the attention of a 7 year old for a half-hour and that's if you're lucky. Who would ever pay for this?

Considering my last post I deserve to get slapped if this isn't real. If you find out anything along these lines let me know, I will admit defeat to the day of fools.

posted by: DigiDave

Internet April Fools For Geeks

Today is a day for jokes, pranks and other such nonsense. Here is a short summary of the best April fools Internet "gotchas" I've come across. The first has already been noted by fellow blogger Feeling Entropy, Google's new drink which claims to quench your thirst and make you smarter.

Next we have a post on Slashdot from a man who is such a techno nut that he is selling his son for 30,000 to keep up on the latest goods.

Finally there is a fantastically funny story at SpaceDaily about how Bush has cancelled the entire space shuttle program. I have to admit, this one had me for a second. But, taking a moment to look for it on any major newspaper made me realize I done did got tricked.

posted by: DigiDave

Aww...How Cute

"Japanese Gadget Exporter AudioCubes is offering the Thanko USB P@D Aroma Generator. The Thanko USB P@D Aroma Generator comes with 3 different cartridges for different smells. The Intelligent Aroma Diffuser spreads the scent for 30 seconds and stop for 2 and half minutes and it continues this pattern for 4 hours. The USB Gadget measures 110 x 115 x 47mm. Available Aromas include Cinnamon, Woody, Herb and Fruit. "

How neat. How many times do you sit in your cubical while your neighbor has some strange aroma, or is eating their lunch with boilded eggs that have not been in the fridge all day. Neat concept, a nice desk ornament, and hopefully not too strong on the nose.

$69.00 USD

posted by: Unjustjust

Google Drink

The ever so popular internet search engine Google, is trying to take over a 7-Eleven near you. Google Gulp is the new digital hipster’s drink of choice, coming in 4 colorful flavors and a nifty web page explaining just how to get your hands on the drink in demand. Talks of DNA scanners, Auto-Drink ™ Technology, and a low carb count make this drink highly technological. The only way to receive a Google Gulp of your own is to take a used cap to your local grocer in redemption for a new one. That company is sure on top of things these days. On a sidenote, while working on this breakthrough drink, they also released plans to up the storage capacity for their gmail service from 1 gigabyte to 2.

posted by: feeling entropy

Genocide On Linux?

It appears that Linux is being attacked by so called ‘enemies’. I’m not talking about viruses being written for the open source software, but actual people who are against the OS. The enemies of Linux are manipulating numbers and persuading server purchasing companies to opt for a different server OS. Linux has seen some hard times and now is no different. In my opinion Linux is here to stay, and so are the ‘enemies’ of Linux.

posted by: feeling entropy